Something is different this year. A shift in my soul resonates to the deepest parts of my identity. As the soles of my feet pound into the treadmill my mind tries to figure what exactly it is. Tracking my pace and time I mentally take note to add it to my training plan later—and then it hits me.

I have nothing to prove.

I don’t have to prove anything. Not. One. Thing.

I don’t have to push through my workout to beat anyone else’s pace, nor am I worried about how my face looks sweaty and bare. It mirrors every part of my life. Work, writing, motherhood, marriage, even the numbers on the scale.

I am…and it is perfectly enough.

Smiling, I continue to run despite the weariness and strain as I prepare to push my body beyond limits in a marathon which makes me smile again. This training, preparing, is just like life–on this side of eternity and beyond.

A marathon you say? 🙂 If you know me, I never do the same thing twice. I get tattoos on a whim and will spring for a road trip at a moment’s notice. You also know I’m always trying new things, big things. Always proving until I started marathon training.

I’m always trying, doing—and this year I’m…being. And it’s the most amazing experience.

I wake up each morning confident in my own skin and anticipate the treasures of my focus on His presence. I’ve been wrapped in his presence for years but somehow learning to “be” has awakened a newness to Him. Like diving into the flooded Platte river after spring rains, it feels alive, effervescent; this side and depth of God–I’ve never encountered.

That Little Girl Wasn’t Enough

I’ve wrestled with not being “enough” since I kindergarten when my teacher favored some of my better dressed classmates. Me, in frumpy, itchy calico dresses my grandma made from old curtains, blond hair in pig tails and yellowed teeth always asking for a hug—begging for acceptance and approval. I just didn’t know what it was called yet.

The last two years made me feel like a that clumsy little girl again. It has been a tumultuous journey through limitless ambition in trials and failures in search of perfection, acceptance—stumbling and falling on the wrong roads, paths where I got lost, where I found dreams that weren’t mine.

Restless for something significant—I found HIS love in the strangest of places. I found what when I needed most when life stopped working for me.

In the middle of the night, tired and eyes bloodshot from tears shed through anguish and weariness from the deepest places in my soul; 2:30 A.M. back against office wall, sitting on the floor journal open, dreams written, HIS presence questioned. Life imperfect, me wrestling with His will.

Withered in surrender it felt as though His hands dug me up from the sandy soil of my world, pulling apart my balled up roots and planted me in organic soil, rich in his love. There splayed on the edges of a journal entry were promises, scratches of what I’ve been called to do, all surrounding tear stained “Where are you in this God,” letters.

Unearthing a mess of my balled up roots, he answered loud and clear to have courage to just be me inside of Him. He Spoke, I listened:

WAIT. Be still and know that I am God.

But God, you said I would do great things…

I formed you shrouded in darkness, I called you before I set time in motion.

But God, what about the words on my heart,

“I called you according to my purpose, wait—be still and know it will happen on my time,”

But God, what will they think…

You have my acceptance and love. Don’t you know I sing over you. Prepare and lean hard into me.

Being

Gone are the chains of doing, acting, and looking the part. Gone is the need to fit in. I’m planted firmly in the middle of his rich love where competition of self and against others isn’t needed thrive. All that’s needed is being, becoming, and my focus on him.

Hopefully by mile 18 when I feel like I can’t go on, I can come back to this moment, this feeling, and remember why I’m running and why I am trying this new thing of being.

“Elijah isn’t reading as well as he could be. You can tell from the break he took over the summer he isn’t confident when he reads out loud. If he can spend 10 to 15 minutes each day reading, he can catch up to his peers.”

Stunned by my genius child’s “lack,” I discovered another consequence from our summer of switching medication for his ADHD. It had taken nearly a month for one medicine to build up in his system which translated into insane month of managing behaviors–reading a book was at the bottom of the list. But it was promising to know if he exercised his abilities he would be stronger in no time–just like our faith or lack of.

Faith is not just a one-time decision to follow Jesus, instead we are called to increase in faith. And when life has you living on the edge or hanging on to the very last frayed thread, it’s hard to exercise our faith, sometimes it’s the last thing we do when we should be exercising it the most. Faith has been described like a muscle and muscles in our body will atrophy if it is not used. If you have ever had a cast on an arm or leg for a few weeks you know what I mean.

So what happens to our faith if our Bibles get dusty and our knees never hit the floor?

Life in the Riggleman household is often full of vibrant chaos. I can say vibrant because I’ve learned to create high structure for my kids with special needs, they thrive when life is routine and they know what happens next. But as a grown chica, I know life doesn’t always go as planned. When I find myself full doubt and surrounded by grey moments, it’s because I slacked off and allowed my muscles of faith to atrophy. Just when I’m waist deep in a mess, I wonder where God is–and what I love about him is he whispers his faithfulness when I’ve forgotten.

You may be going through moments where you’re wondering if God is faithful because of the storm surrounding you. I can promise you this, you may be surrounded by deep waters but he won’t let you drown, whether your grieving from a loved one passing away, the diagnosis of cancer, filing for bankruptcy or divorce. It may be the case of terrible two’s three’s or hormonal teenage years–I promise you God is faithful. Here are verses to pin to remind you of God’s faithfulness. 🙂 Be blessed.

15 Verses to Remind Us of His Faithfulness

Psalms 91:4 He will cover you with his feathers. He will shelter you with his wings. His faithful promises are your armor and protection.

Psalms 86:15“But you, O Lord, are a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness.”

Hebrews 11:1 Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.

Hebrews 11:6 And without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.

1 Corinthians 1:9 God is faithful, by whom you were called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.

1 Corinthians 10:9We must not put Christ to the test, as some of them did and were destroyed by serpents.

1 Corinthians 10:13No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it.

2 Thessalonians 3:3 But the Lord is faithful. He will establish you and guard you against the evil one.

Hebrews 10:23 Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful.

Psalms 40:10 I have not hidden your deliverance within my heart; I have spoken of your faithfulness and your salvation; I have not concealed your steadfast love and your faithfulness from the great congregation.

Proverbs 28:20 A faithful man will abound with blessings, but whoever hastens to be rich will not go unpunished.

Luke 16:10 One who is faithful in a very little is also faithful in much, and one who is dishonest in a very little is also dishonest in much.

1 Corinthians 4:2Moreover, it is required of stewards that they be found faithful.

2 Timothy 2:13 If we are faithless, he remains faithful—for he cannot deny himself.

Everybody has a home team: the friends you call when you lock yourself out of your house once again and ask for the copy of keys you’ve given them or the person you talk to when something terrible happens. It’s these people who know what’s wrong with you and love you anyway. These are the ones who will tell you to breathe deep when you insanely snap at your child and these are the people who tell you the bathing suit you’re about to purchase is cellulite suicide. Yes, these are the people who know the medications you’re taking and help you fish snakes out of your beloved closet.

These are your people, your no-matter-what-posse. If you’ve had the same posse for years, BLESS you–if you’re like me–just barely stumbling through the hole you knocked down for friends to enter, this post is for you.

You can’t possibly do life without a home team.

And if you want to be a brave mom–you need a home team.

If you want a home team, you need to get past the phrase, “There’s no crying in baseball,” and embrace the steady stream of tears, imbalanced hormones, and allow your friends to not only gather around your beautiful kitchen table but also grant access to the basement where the REAL you is revealed.

Basement Dwelling isn’t Really Living

There in the inner recesses of your home are cobwebs, stained couches from too many buttery hands on movie night, a wine stain in the corner from one of those rare alone-as-couple moments. Not to mention messes upon messes like dirty windows still in need of curtains, loads of stain filled laundry–not to mention the load you’ve been fluffing for days on end because you plan to fold it soon.

But the basement is where the real you resides. It doesn’t take courage to let emotions stream, fears to surface, and the fact you whine while being on your treadmill because you want to be that perfect size. Basement dwelling was home for me because I found it too crowded upstairs. We would entertain guests upstairs, inviting them over for one of Chris’ amazing gourmet dinners, we would talk about the comfortable surface things: kids, marriage, work, faith. Then I would smile, thank them for coming over and before re-entering the basement–peeling off the fake me with my dress clothes.

Here in the basement is where I raged against God over the phone of losing my baby. I could tell you about the months of fertility treatments, bed rest, and the strain it put on my marriage. I could tell you about the fears from comparing myself to other moms while finding myself coming up short–knowing my insides weren’t shiny like her outsides. I could tell you about the tears and anger that flowed freely over the diagnosis of special needs for two of my children. I could tell you about the questions and worries as I identified with many of the reasons why a friend committed suicide. I could tell you about the thousands of sleepless nights as the same string of failures rolloadecked through my mind, show casing each career, friendship, and ministry failure–one by one; all here in the inner recesses of my basement dwelling soul.

And because I didn’t think anyone could be as wounded as me or understand, I dared not let anyone enter.

But I was not meant to be a basement dweller, living life alone and barely scratching the surface and neither were you.

I learned to stop pretending the day God said to me through Mark, “It’s time to make you well.” He used women whom I had been leading in a Bible study open a hole in my “roof” and lay me down at the feet of Jesus. As a mom–woman, the most courageous thing I ever did was strip myself of “the fake,” laying out all of me at my friend’s feet, asking Jesus make me well.

These days, I don’t bother to check my hair or pick up the dirty plates or socks laying around before answering the door. I give everything I’ve got to my home team–the real me, raw, sometimes struggling, sometimes not– knowing seasons will shift trials to another’s shoulders. In order to brave the crowds and sometimes the darkness in my basement, I will always need a home team.

My home team gets my energy and time because I know at some point I will once again ask for their help to lay me at Jesus’ feet to be made well.

Being 30 something and surrounded by young college people not only makes me feel old and but makes me realize how critical it is we give our kids a foundation of faith built on God and his Word. As I sat in class, references to faith and Christianity popped up, what shocked me were the references and comments that individuals like myself who base their beliefs on one text like the Bible are, “…closed minded and futile in their thinking.”

WOW.

This generation’s prevalent worldview of postmodern thought includes postmodern values on spiritually, community, experience, and betterment of the world. In order words, this generation is highly skeptical of authority and won’t believe or do something simply because of tradition and they believe faith to be warm, fuzzy and subjective.

A quick web searching on “Teaching Kids About Faith” will pull articles like Parenting Magazine where faith, spirituality, and post modernism are combined to give parents ideas on how to send good thoughts in terms of faith.

Sadness crept into my heart for my classmates because they didn’t know what it meant to be in a relationship with God. They haven’t been introduced to grace or the promises of being imperfectly perfect, yet—radically loved by God. They don’t know the wild, passionate, deep love Jesus has for us—nor have they ever tasted freedom in the form of bread and wine in those precious bittersweet moments of communion. And sadly enough, they’ve never encountered God whispering answers or direction to prayer. Instead, they’ve encountered unchristian behavior and know everything we stand against.

It’s time to change that with my children’s generation.

It made me consider what I really want my kids to know about Faith and here six things I want to teach my kids:

1.The Bible is the Inspired Word of God

According to Barna, less than nine percent of adults believe the Word of God is infallible—meaning God’s word is contains no errors, is completely true and applies to our lives today. I want my kids to know God’s word to be true because God wouldn’t lie, because he is sovereign and wouldn’t put something in His Word unless we needed it. I want my kids to know His Word is living and active, it judges the hearts of men, and acts as a compass. And I want them to understand there is something inappropriate about using secular science to judge the claims of the Bible when we must believe it to be true simply because it is God’s Word.

And I also want them to know it is not to be used as weapon against things they don’t understand, nor is it used to condemn or judge but it is to be used as a living, breathing, active compass of Christ centered living. A way to love others through relationship with Jesus.

2. Faith will Help You in the Real World

When the world is pushing messages like, do what feels good, sleep your way to the top, you don’t need to be married to be a couple. I don’t want my kids to think faith is just a part of the latest trend in thought. I want them to God’s message is true today like it was 2000 years ago and like it will be tomorrow or on the other side of the world. The foundation of faith I’m teaching my kids is relevant and will still be applicable when they navigate the real world through personal choices, work, career, and relationships. Whenever they question what to do, I want them to get on their knees in prayer and/or dive into God’s Word.

3. Faith is more than just rules—it’s a relationship

With many doctrines, belief systems, and symbolic traditions encompassed under the word, “Christianity, it paints God to be an unrelenting task master full with a list of legalistic rules. I want my kids to know faith isn’t about rules, I want them to experience God’s love and what it’s like to have a relationship with Jesus. Being loved by Christ motivates me to want to do what God asks through his Word, to live life for Christ and it’s what will motivate them to pursue God’s heart.

4. Faith is an action

Faith isn’t just a warm, fuzzy feeling—faith means being Christ’s hands and feet in action. I don’t want my children to become disillusioned with the church or the years Jesus spent in ministry by feeding and clothing the poor. Jesus spent more time in relationship with society’s rejects than he did with his fellow peers at the synagogue. I to teach my kids about “feeding his lambs,” I want my kids to be other’s centered instead of self-centered.

5. Faith means there is a future and a purpose for you

In a world where parents teach their kids to be anything they want—I want my children to know the true meaning of Jeremiah 29:11-13 and Psalm 139. I want my children to know they were created for a purpose, born with unique talents and destined to fulfill a purpose no one else can do. I want them to seek God’s face to establish their future. I want them to intimately understand Ephesians 2:10 of being God’s masterpiece.

6. Faith is keeping your eyes on Jesus

Today’s fad will be swept up in yesterday’s news but God is the same as he was yesterday as he will be tomorrow. I want my kids to keep their eyes on Jesus no matter how crazy and anti-Jesus this world becomes. This means I have to lead by example, putting my faith and relationship with Jesus in action. When something bad happens, I say, “Jesus, please help whoever’s been hurt in that accident,” or share how radically he loves me at the dinner table with a wildly far fetched—yet answered prayer. I want them to keep their eyes on him, no matter what.

Fighting for your child’s faith can be a tough and sometimes daunting battle, it’s easy to fear they will get lost or question our ability to lead or teach. But if you love Jesus and teach them to love Him, you and your children will one day meet Him face to face and hear the words, “Well done, good and faithful servant.”

I don’t even know where to start, I feel so trapped. I want to write–for my words to ignite thousands of women’s hearts to be on fire for you. I want each word to be the catalyst that makes each women turn around and run back to you–brave in their faith, steady in their walk, and hearts trusting in you.

And then I look up from my computer, my kids running through the yard, playing football and drawing imaginary adventures in chalk on the sidewalk. My heart burns just as much to see them grow in their faith–to be ambassadors for Christ in this crazy world that seems to push YOU out every chance it gets.

Life feels so messy, upside down and inside out. The bills overwhelm me, the needs my kids have worry me, and then I wonder if I’m being too selfish to dream these dreams.

I feel like the world is against me, and I feel like I’m all by myself, and I don’t think I can hear your voice. I feel all alone.(excerpt from my journal).

Faith was so easy when I first met God, his love flooded my world like one ocean wave after another hitting the shores of my heart. I didn’t need to worry about the future or about my dreams because he told me

“You’ll never be alone. I will always be with you. Stand on your faith in me.”

But here’s the thing, I’m not who I was when I first met Jesus; the journey of life has brought me to valleys I never expected. The pathways are broken and the signs are often unclear. But I’m clinging to the promise he isn’t through with me yet and I have one thought:

If this trial brings me closer to YOU, I’ll walk through it if you want me to.

Maybe you feel the same way little mama. 🙂 Do you ever have days where your life feels like it’s a mess? You wonder as you match off white socks “Is this all there is? Am I making a difference? Do I matter? Does Jesus hear me? Is he even here?

Your pathway may be broken and the road signs are unclear and this may be the darkest valley you’ve ever walked through; and it seems like he isn’t answering your cries for help.

But it doesn’t mean God isn’t with you.

Because when we don’t stand on faith, we fall into the pits of worry and doubt. We forget how mighty our God is. We forget WHO HE IS. We forget how much he suffered to win our hearts–we forget the details of the love story he is writing to us.

When a woman doesn’t stand on faith, she will ache with the sadness of an overwhelmed & lonely soul.

He giving us the opportunity to grow in our faith, to trust him in life when it feels like he is absent, to tell our hearts to be still for he is still with us–it’s a chance to close our eyes and remember his promises.

So when your dreams become stagnant,

when your child slams his door in your face

when your husband turns away from you

when the final bill notice arrives in the mail

when the medical tests come back abnormal

when our child’s behaviors drive us to our knees

Stand on the promises HE gave you at the beginning of your life’s journey,